A widely cultivated South American plant (Lycopersicon esculentum) having edible, fleshy, usually red fruit.

The fruit of this plant.

Slang. A woman regarded as attractive.

[Alteration of Spanish tomate, from Nahuatl tomatl.]

tomatoeyto·ma'to·ey (-tō-ē) adj.

WORD HISTORY Among the greatest contributions to world civilization made by the early inhabitants of the Americas are plant foods such as the potato and squash.

The tomato, whose name comes ultimately from the Nahuatl language spoken by the Aztecs and other groups in Mexico and Central America, was another important contribution. When the Spanish conquered this area, they brought the tomato back to Spain and, borrowing the Nahuatl word tomatl for it, named it tomate, a form shared in French, Portuguese, and early Modern English.

Tomate, first recorded in 1604, gave way to tomato, a form created in English either because it was assumed to be Spanish or under the influence of the word potato. As is well known, people at first resisted eating this New World food because its membership in the nightshade family made it seem potentially poisonous, but it is now is an important element of many world cuisines.

[tuh-MAY-toh; tuh-MAH-toh] Like the potato and eggplant, the tomato is a member of the nightshade family. It's the fruit of a vine native to South America. By the time European explorers arrived in the New World, the tomato had made its way up into Central America and Mexico. The Spanish carried plants back home from Mexico, but it took some time for tomatoes to be accepted in Spain because it was thought that-like various other members of the nightshade family-they were poisonous. Some tomato advocates, however, claimed the fruit had aphrodisiac powers and, in fact, the French called them pommes d'amour, "love apples." It wasn't until the 1900s that the tomato gained some measure of popularity in the United States. Today this fruit is one of America's favorite "vegetables," a classification the government gave the tomato for trade purposes in 1893. Dozens of tomato varieties are available today-ranging widely in size, shape and color. Among the most commonly marketed is the beefsteak tomato, which is delicious both raw and cooked. It's large, bright red and slightly elliptical in shape.

Globe tomatoes are medium-size, firm and juicy. Like the beefsteak, they're good both raw and cooked. Another variety is the plum tomato (also called Italian plum and Roma), a flavorful egg-shaped tomato that comes in red and yellow versions. Grape tomatoes are baby romas. The medium-size green tomato has a piquant flavor, which makes it excellent for frying, broiling and adding to relishes.

The small cherry tomato is about 1 inch in diameter and can be red or yellow-gold in color. It's very popular-both for eating and as a garnish-because of its bright color and excellent flavor. The yellow cherry tomato is slightly less acidic than the red and therefore somewhat blander in flavor. Though it's long been popular raw in salads, the cherry tomato is gaining favor as a cooked side dish, quickly sautéed with herbs.

The Return of a Lost Jersey Tomato

Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times

GETTING REDDER John Ebert holds a Ramapo tomato; he has three acres of them on his Cherry Hill, N.J., farm.

“Everyone was going gaga over them. My farmers were trying to grow them, and we’d walk out in the field and just see horticultural garbage,” said Mr. Rabin, a longtime agricultural extension agent with Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. who works with about 800 growers around the state. “Every time it rained, they would crack open or turn into water bags. They burned in the sun or developed fungus you could taste,” he said. “It was painful to watch, and the yields were a nightmare.”

Since 2001, Mr. Rabin has been the head of the Rutgers tomato project, responsible for identifying tomatoes that farmers can grow successfully and consistently. It is an awesome charge in a state where “Jersey tomato” is as prideful a phrase as “Jersey girl.” It is even more so this year, as Mr. Rabin helps to bring back to market a lost variety that was once virtually the definition of the Jersey tomato.

But what’s so special about the Jersey tomato?

“It can’t be the soil, because we’ve got sandy soil in the south of the state, and more clay and loam in the north,” said Pete Nitzsche, a Rutgers agent in Morris County. “What we’ve got here is a memory of how tomatoes used to taste.”

That memory is so powerful that when the seeds of a favorite tomato, the Ramapo, became unavailable in the late 1980s, the state’s gardeners began a letter-writing campaign, demanding that Rutgers bring it back.

“The 1990s is when we began to hear a swelling of dissatisfaction with the flavor of tomatoes in New Jersey,” Mr. Rabin said. “Something had to give.”

The Ramapo was popular when it was released by Rutgers in 1968, but was eventually judged too soft for shipping, Mr. Rabin said. This spring, after a multiyear project that involved retrieving fragile seeds from a retired plant geneticist and sending them to Israel for germination, Rutgers finally brought back the Ramapo.

John Ebert, whose family runs the last working farm in Cherry Hill, N.J., has three acres of Ramapos just turning red this week.

“Ramapo was literally the only tomato we grew for most of my childhood,” he said. “It was, and maybe still is, the perfect Jersey tomato.”

The classic Jersey tomato is not an heirloom, loosely defined as a tomato your great-grandfather might have grown in the backyard. Classic Jerseys are hybrid tomatoes, bred by seed companies or in laboratories like Mr. Rabin’s, to have certain qualities such as resistance to disease or high yields. The famous Rutgers hybrid tomato, released by the university in 1934, has a particular sweet tanginess that was prized by the Campbell Soup company, based in Camden, N.J.

An heirloom can be any type of tomato, such as a plum, a cherry or a beefsteak. Since their breeding is uncontrolled, heirlooms tend to have intriguing genetic variations like green streaks, blushing blossom ends and mahogany shoulders.

“The Jersey tomato is a nondescript red, round tomato,” said Mr. Rabin. “And I use nondescript as a term of respect.”

Is there nothing unique about the legendary Jersey tomato? Ask seven New Jersey farmers and you get the same answer: a perfect balance of sweet and acid. But everything from lemonade to lollipops can be described that way.

Although many praise the Ramapo’s tangy, mouth-filling flavor, growers especially appreciated its vigor. Unlike some heirlooms, this hybrid variety was prolific and easy to grow. Linda Muccio, a retired teacher who grew up near Paterson, said that her Italian-born grandparents — all four of them — used home-grown Ramapos all summer and for sauce in September when she was a child, choosing them over Italian plum tomatoes because the yields were so much greater. “More tomatoes on the vine means more sauce for the winter,” she said. “Simple as that.”

New Jersey tomatoes and homegrown varieties have been considered safe for weeks.

“I have two large Ramapos ripening in a pot on my patio,” said Sandra McLaughlin, who participates in the state’s Master Gardener program in Monmouth County, and has never tasted a Ramapo. “I can’t wait to see what all the fuss is about.”

Such excitement about a round red tomato is now rare. American cooks and gardeners have embraced striped Green Zebras, maroon Brandywines and Russian Blacks. In some circles, the plain old red, round, medium-size beefsteak is now branded with the dreaded phrase “supermarket tomato.”

Except, that is, in New Jersey, where the state’s agricultural reputation was built on consistently sweet, juicy tomatoes that were ingested by the nearby Campbell and Heinz plants and transformed into soup, ketchup and juice, generating vast fortunes and mighty brands in the process.

“The Ramapo is the heirloom tomato of New Jersey,” said Mr. Nitzsche.

Many factors, from rainfall to genetics, contribute to a tomato’s flavor. But perhaps the most important is ripeness, an advantage that Jersey tomatoes had whenever they were eaten in or near New Jersey.

“Someone will probably have my head for saying this,” said Gary Ibsen, an organic tomato farmer in central California. “But to my mind, what the Jersey tomato has going for it is the legend, and the loyalty, and the rest of it is just the pronounced flavor of any tomato that’s picked ripe and not shipped around the continent.”

Flavor versus function has been a fundamental choice for American farmers, since the Interstate highway system was established in the 1950s.

“Once tomatoes were being bred for shipment, everything changed,” Mr. Ibsen said. Farmers benefited most by selecting varieties with thick skins and tough walls. “But now that shipping is so expensive, I think everything is going to change again,” he predicted. “You’re going to see a lot more local tomatoes everywhere.”

Is spending $10,000 to send a truckload of Jersey tomatoes from California to New Jersey like sending coals to Newcastle? On his 300-acre organic farm, Mr. Ibsen grows both heirlooms and hybrids, including the Rutgers.

“The hybrids that were developed for taste, not for shipping, can hold up to any heirloom out there,” Mr. Rabin said.

“When I hear these young chefs gushing about heirlooms, I wonder: haven’t they ever tasted a Big Boy, or an Early Girl?”

Tops for Taste

Since 2001, the Rutgers Agricultural Extension Service has invited the public to evaluate about 150 tomato varieties. (Details and information on Ramapo tomatoes are at njfarmfresh.rutgers.edu/JerseyTomato.html.) Following are the highest rated.